


Why One Does Not Hack Into the Militaries Software

by Sydman24



Category: Man of Steel (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Minor violence (this is Zod we are talking about), Slow-building Relationship, Smut, Swearing, UST, Zod in handcuffs, mindgames
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2017-12-20 07:03:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sydman24/pseuds/Sydman24
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*Cross posting from kink meme over at live journal (only changing the name slightly)* <br/>Sara Killian is so close to fulfilling her destiny she can almost taste it. Then the files she needs are locked away. Solution: hack into the government files to get what she needs. Result: she gets locked away in a cell next to General Zod. Now she is begin used by Kal-El as a way of convincing Zod that he can move on from Krypton's destruction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know next to nothing about Superman or Krypton except for what was depicted in Man of Steel, the first Superman movie, Superman Returns and the first two seasons of Smallville (which I watched as a little kid) so please bear with me on this as most of the information for it is pure bull s***. I don’t own Zod, nor any of the recognizable characters from the movie. I do however own Sara and her father and pray she is not a mary-sue. This is also going to be a semi-long slow building fic, as I attempt to pack it with some UST (though I have never written a fic where the characters don’t just go at one and other).

Sara Killian was never one to worry about the little parts of life. She lived ever moment working towards her one true goal, her destiny. And right now, she needed her father’s help to achieve that goal. From a young age, Sara always knew that she was made to do great things; she would change the world she just never really knew how. In grade school she had developed a passion for science, mainly space, and began to work her way into a prestigious college. School became her life, everything else fell on the backburner, and when her mother died of cancer she was told to come home. Of course some higher power had it out for her; the day of the funeral was the entrance exams for her doctorate program. It was her future or her mother. And of course she chose her future.

From there on she never really spoke to her father or anyone for that matter. Life became her studies, and now fate was toying with her again. Her final project, the last piece for her dissertation was to study the reasoning for the explosion of a red star in the Venamorfic system thirty-three years ago. This would be simple for her to do, burry herself in research for a week, and write up the forty-five or so page paper, finish the project and she would be Dr. Sara Killian and have her own lab with access to unlimited funds. Problem was the Venamorfic system seemed to be red flagged, part of a need-to-know military investigation. And she couldn’t just skip that anomaly because that system was in the center of her star field, and also had a planet similar to Earth orbiting it that was destroyed when the star went supernova for no explainable reason.  
Upside, her father was a Colonel in the Air Force and would have access to the files she needed. Downside, they hadn’t spoken in the five years since her mother’s death. Solution, there were two possible outcomes. Either she worked up the courage to ask her father for access to the files, in which case he would most likely say no, or she hacked into his server at the base and got the files herself, and seeing as Mason (a friend (ex-boyfriend) of her last roommate who still owed her a favor for setting up their date) was great at hacking into files, and owed her the afore mentioned favor, she was going with plan B. Which is what brought her to her current predicament, sitting in a cell in the base of the Air Force out in the middle of the desert waiting for her father to show up so she could be interrogated (again) to ascertain as to why she was trying to find out information about some planet they kept calling Krypton. 

Sara sighed as she paced the short length of the cell for what felt like the hundredth time. She hadn’t really done anything wrong, all she had done was get Mason to hack the computer system to find out information for a dissertation paper that could make, or break, her future. That wasn’t really all that bad in the long run was it? Killing someone, that was bad. Raping someone, also bad. Threatening the life of the President of the United States, welcome to Guantanamo. But gaining access to information that should be free and open to the public, that deserved a slap on the wrist at most. Besides they should be congratulating her and Mason for pointing out how easy it was, and probably still is, to break into the system. 

Sara dropped onto the lumpy cot in the corner that served as a bed and was also bolted to the wall and the ground. She buried her face in her hands and then grounded her elbows on her bent knees. This was not good; if this went on her permanent record she could kiss her lab goodbye. Actually if this wasn’t resolved in two weeks she could kiss her lab goodbye. 

“Clear out the hallway,” a male voice echoed down the stone corridor. The sound of booted feet tromping together in mock cadence came closer and closer to Sara’s cell. For a moment she panicked that they were coming to take her to the interrogation room again, or her father might have arrived, but that hanged when the voice spoke again this time much closer. “Prisoner in-bound, open cell four.”

A soldier ran past her cell ahead of the others, he was the guard for this cell block and had a rather uneventful day up until this point though neither knew who was being brought in. He scrambled to unlock the cell adjacent to hers. It was across the hall and one to the side, so she could see the very edge of the prisoner’s cell if she pressed up against the bars to her own. Uninterested in this fact though Sara sat on her cot and watched as a large number of military personnel passed by. She could just barely make out another person among the mix, not fitting in. It was the prisoner, no doubt about that, and he didn’t look all that dangerous. That might be because he was being dragged along by a second figure that was not part of the military, unless of course the new uniforms included skin tight blue outfits with red capes. 

She watched, now slightly interested, as the General opened the cell and allowed the man to enter it alone. When he came back out he cast a glance over to her cell. Sara, who had stood up without even knowing it, walked over to the entrance of her cell and stared back at the man. He was tall, muscular, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was attractive, she would not consider him hot or even date worthy, and his brown furled as he frowned when he saw her. 

“I thought you said this block would be clear, General?” he commented, breaking eye contact with her to look at Swanwick as he spoke. 

“It was supposed to be, we usually don’t keep prisoners here, but considering the fact that she was digging around information about Krypton after hacking into our software we thought we would make an exception,” General Swanwick answered turning his head to look at her cell while crossing his arms in defiance at the man in with the cape. 

Sara growled in frustration before she called out to the two of them, “I’ve told you several times now, General, I wasn’t looking for your Krypton or whatever the hell you want to call it. I was looking for information about a star that went supernova thirty-three years ago. I could care less about this Krypton place.” 

The man in red cocked his head when he glanced back at her. He sighed and turned his attention back to Swanwick, “I don’t foresee her posing a threat to me or to Zod. But I do see Zod posing a threat to her. If something happens to her, her life is in your hands. I would advise getting her out of her as quickly as you can though.” 

With that he turned and walked back down the hall, his footsteps deathly silent as he moved. Swanwick ordered his men away from the cell, and informed his guard that he was to be extra cautious around the “Zod” guy. With that the bulk of the men left and soon it was just the guard, Sara and apparently Zod.


	2. Chapter 2

He had learned at an early age that when fighting in hand to hand combat it was best to avoid a knock out via the bundle of nerves located in the juncture between the neck and shoulder. It posed an easy way to drop an enemy, but it hurt like hell to wake up from. He senses returned sluggishly. It started with a burning, throbbing pain in his right shoulder, followed closely by a sharp shooting pain at the base of his skull. His lungs and throat began to burn soon after, the lack of oxygen he had received prior to Kal-El knocking him out was beginning to take its toll. 

Sound was next; thankfully in the deep of this stone fortress the sounds of the outside world were muted and nonexistent for the most part. But a rapid thumping filled his ears; the pulse was too fast to be his own heartbeat and too close to be the guard these silly humans would post to watch him. Someone else was close by, he archived that for later. Smell was next, he could feel the dampness to the air, and his militant mind working to figure out how much moisture there was as a way for telling him how deep in the ground they were. He could also detect a faint perfume, like flowers or moss. Both were rare on his home planet, or at least they had been, for Krypton had reached over population long before they began to run out of energy. But deep under the structured interwoven web of ships, living quarters, and businesses was a small bit of green left to the world. He visited that spot often when he was younger; it was a smell that he could not bring himself to forget anytime soon. Comforting, in its own way. 

He could taste the blood from where he had bit down on his lip earlier in the struggle. It was a deep copper flavor that sent his taste buds into over drive and mingled with the smells of the place creating a green/red starburst to appear in his mind’s eye chasing away the blackness. This meant that sight, both with his eyes and his mind, was fully functioning as well. He began to breath in deeper, hear the rumble of his chest as his muscles expanded and contracted, focusing his mind down to the pinpoint needed to observe this world and lock out the unnecessary sensory distractions of this planet. When all he could hear was his own breathing he opened his eyes. 

A stone cell, they thought a stone cell would hold him? Well it’s a good thing Jor-El was never alive to see his son grow past his infancy; he would be so disappointed by his son’s stupidity. Dru-Zod slowly sat up, he knew from past experience’s that moving too quickly after what he went through would be a bad idea. He planted his feet firmly on the ground and sat up straight. His back popped several times, he rolled his shoulders and then cracked his neck. The last two motions hurt as he did them but once his bones and tendons had realigned he felt much better. 

Smirking to himself, Zod rose to his feet and walked the six steps to reach the metal bars holding him caged. He wrapped his hands around the two directly in front of him, his fingers working together one at a time to encase the metal pinky first until his thumb curled around last. Bracing his arms so that his elbows were bent as if he was in the push-up position he locked his shoulder blades and pulled. Only the bars didn’t bend. Zod released the bars, he frowned at the bars as well as his own hands. With an agitated growl he grabbed the bars again and pulled. Still they didn’t even give.

“Kal-El!” Zod yelled. He pulled the bars towards him. Nothing. He pushed them away. Still nothing. He was as weak as a mortal, or as weak as Kal-El had been on his ship. Zod was breathing heavy, he was pissed off. It took him half a second to drop his focus and everything came rushing in. Zod clutched at his head, covering his ears, as he sunk to the ground he folded in on himself, the sounds washed over him like a wave crashing over a boat in a storm. He could hear the sounds of pounding feet all around him, he could hear a shouted conversation, along with the typing of keys, in a control room several floors up. He could hear everything within a 5 mile radius. He felt his eyes begin to burn as he fought to open them, and then the idea hit him. As his eyes began to glow red hot he envisioned himself melting away the bars of his cage or slicing through them to his freedom. But a voice chased away all of those thoughts as his concentration slipped. 

“Hey, are you alright?” A female voice cried out over all of the other sounds. Zod ignored it; someone was asking that question far away from him. He just needed to focus and then he was out of this prison, out of this cell and back on track to destroy this planet and every last human on it. “Hello. I asked if you were alright.” 

Zod’s eyes snapped open and he glared to his right. Slowly Zod stood erect. A frown crossed his features as he studied the figure across from him. It was a human, weak useless, it also happened to be one of their females. She was of average build, probably in her mid-twenties, though he would never be a good judge of the age of these creatures. She was roughly five foot five with dark brown hair and light brown eyes. And she was getting on his nerves. 

“What is happening to me?” Zod asked. He grabbed the bars again and pulled, still nothing. Every other ability of his seemed to be working except for his strength. And there was absolutely no explanation for it that he could find. 

“It might have something to do with the shot thing the man in blue gave you about an hour ago,” The girl answered. Zod had not expected an answer from her, had not even been asking her the question, but the answer made perfect sense. Apparently Kal was smarter then he gave the man credit for. 

“Sara, stop talking to that man now,” A male voice called down the path. Zod smirked as the human male stormed to the girl’s cell. Zod backed away from the bars but not so far that he could not watch what was going to happen.


	3. Chapter 3

“Colonel Killian, good to see you again,” Sara said entering into a staring contest with the man before her. Her father had brown hair, streaked with grey in his old age, and stormy blue eyes. He had a temper that those in his command feared, and right now she was on the receiving end of that wrath. 

“Should I ask what you were thinking when you decided that hacking into government files was a good idea, or were you just not thinking at all?” Colonel James Killian yelled. He was at his wits end with his daughter. He was unsure if he even wanted to get her out of this situation, he knew he had to that he was supposed to, but Sara would never learn this way. There were some things in life that just could not be done and then overlooked. “General Swanwick wants to talk to you about why you were trying to gain information about Krypton.” 

“I,” Sara began but her father cut her off.

“I know it was for your dissertation. I explained that to him, and when he didn’t believe me I had him call your professor and the board of directors for your school. Everything has been explained to him, Swanwick I mean, and I’m here to take you home. Or at least I would be if this facility had not just become the only place able to hold an alien from another planet.” Killian shot a glance back at the cell that housed the man who she had just been talking to. 

“Who is he?” Sara asked. She followed her father’s gaze to the cell. She could make out a figure standing in the half light of the cell. He was roughly the same height as the man with the red cape. But he was older, more rugged looking, stronger, yet lean. She could only see half his face from where she was standing. He had short cur hair, sharp facial features. He looked like the type of man who commanded an entire army with a look. But where every other feature was cold and strong, his eyes seemed to betray him. His eyes seemed to want to match the rest of his appearance and attitude, cold and unfeeling, but there was a hidden undertone to them, a haunted look. It made him seem sad, almost lonely. Or, seeing as Sara was not good at all with reading people, he could just be sleepy and had a headache.

“Don’t worry about him. You won’t be seeing him after tonight anyway,” Her father turned back to the cell door and unlocked it as he spoke. When Sara stepped outside he swung the door back into place and it locked with a clang. “Come on, your bunking with me tonight.”

Killian placed a hand on Sara’s shoulder and began to lead her away from the cell. But she turned to look back at the man as she was pushed along. He really looked lost and alone in the darkness like that, it made her feel sad. Sara shook her head; she was not developing feelings for a man who probably tried to kill the president or something like that. Heck he may have even attempted to hack into the server like her.   
______________________________________________________________________  
Next Morning:   
Truthfully, Zod did not know what time it was, he had been knocked out for so long that it made it impossible for him to have any track of time. He knew he had been up for five hours, and the human male who had come to get the girl had acted like it was time to sleep. Human’s usually slept when it was dark out, a trait the Kryptonians shared with them, so that must mean it was dark outside. But that theory was proven wrong when yet another useless human male walked to the front of his cell. He held a large coil of metal in his hands and Zod knew they were the cuffs. Laced with Kryptonite, a metal that that diminished the strength of a Kryptonian who was wearing the cuffs, this contraption would work wonders for keeping him immobile enough that he would be unable to fight back. Kal-El had probably put them up to this. 

He sat on the cot while the human man put the noose of the cuffs around his neck, he didn’t resist when his arms were pulled into the lock position, crossed in front of his chest. This was normal to him, this was acceptable, or it would be if it were not being performed by ant that should be crushed beneath his boot. He sighed as the metal sapped his strength and he began to feel the weight of it pressing down on his shoulders. Finally the wrist cuffs were locked into place by a strap of metal that encircled his waist, taking pressure off his shoulders. 

The military man, a patch on his breast pocket read Willows, lead him out of the cell. He marched, with the guiding force of this Willows at his back, down a series of lefts and rights that he should have paid a small amount of attention to but in reality could not care less. He had this feeling that he was being taken to him, to Kal. And when he was lead into a room that was empty save for a table with two chairs, and then made to sit down. He knew he was right. This was familiar, this was common, this was protocol. It was to be an interrogation, a game of questions attempting to gain answers. But Dru-Zod knew he had none that Kal son of Jor-El would want. Willows stood by the door, his back to the wall and a plasma blaster of some sort was held in his hands across his chest. And they waited. 

Finally, after about half an hour, Kal walked in, followed closely by his own military guard and shadow Swanwick. Kal sat at the table across from him, a smile on his face and his hands resting on the table with his fingers interlocked. For a second Zod saw a shadow of Jor in his son, a flash of his old friend, and then it was gone devoured by the hatred for the man who stole his soul from him. 

“I’m only here to talk Zod,” Kal stated calmly and professionally, as if he were talking to a superior or try to comfort a young child. Zod’s anger flared at his own thought, he was no child. He would not be mocked by this boy. 

“Then,” Zod began, venom dripping from his words as he spoke menace burning in his eyes. “I hope you like to hear the sound of your own voice, Kal, because I have nothing to discuss with you.” 

The younger Kryptonian sighed; he looked crestfallen, as if he had hoped this would go smoothly. Kal, better known to most of the human race as Superman, had wanted to convince Zod to become a friend. He had hoped, and was still hoping in some ways, that Zod could be swayed to see the good in humankind, to see that not everything in his life was lost and that his entire race had been destroyed. Kal had hoped that he would be able to make him see that if one of them were to die the other would be the last of a dead alien race. But it seemed as if Zod were only here to fight, was only able to understand rage and madness and anger. The concept that acceptance and understanding had been bread out of this man had not entered Kal’s mind until this moment. 

“Well,” General Swanwick stated stepping from behind Kal’s chair to stand next to him. “Who will you talk to? Better yet, will you talk to anyone?” 

Zod sat defiantly in silence.

“Because if you don’t feel like talking, then I’m going to have my men take you back to your cell where I will leave you to rot until you feel like talking,” Swanwick leaned over the table and got right in Zod’s face. He could smell the stale coffee on his breath with the soldier had attempted to hide with some mint like substance. 

“General, that won’t be…” Kal started but Zod cut him off.

“Sara,” Zod said. 

“What?” both Kal and Swanwick asked at the same time.

“I will talk to Sara,” Zod watched as Kal turned his head to the side to look at Swanwick for the answer to this problem. Zod could hear Kal ask who Sara was in his mind, could tell he was extremely confused at this point. Swanwick on the other hand had tensed up. His jaw locked and he almost looked murderous. If Zod had been a lesser man, a man from a house lower than his own, he would have openly smirked at this reaction, it had been on he was hoping for all along. Swanwick glared at Zod before directing his attention to the mirror built into the wall on Zod’s right, which when he concentrated he realized was actually a one-way window for the five men standing behind it. And one of those men happened to be the man who came for Sara the night before. 

“Bring Sara here, NOW!” Swanwick yelled at the mirror before directing his attention back to Zod. The pride Zod felt at being able to play a trump card that neither man would be able to match was gone. He had not expected them to actually bring the girl to him. And judging by the look on Kal’s face, neither had he. 

“General you can’t,” Again the younger Kryptonian was cut off.

“I can do whatever I feel, he wants to talk to Sara, fine. Let him talk to Sara. It’s not like she is going to get anything useful from this guy. And she has nothing of value to tell him.” 

“But, Sir,” 

“You are here by invitation that is it. You gave this man to me, you placed in him my custody. That means I can do whatever I want with him, and if he wants to talk to some girl who is already on my shit list, well then by all means let him go at it. Besides if he kills her, he will be doing both of us a favor,” General Swanwick left the room, leaving a shocked and horrified Kal sitting in the chair across from Zod. 

“And you risked our race to save them,” Zod muttered under his breath. Kal turned his attention back to the prisoner and sorrowful glare etched into his features. 

“There is good in them, Zod,” Kal stated getting to his feet he turned to walk out the door and glanced over his shoulder to the bound Kryptonian. “Just as there is good in you.” And with that he walked out. The door swung shut before he could protest.


	4. Chapter 4

Sara was unsure of how this was going to play out. She was now sitting in the interrogation room across from the man from last night. His face was twisted in a scowl as he stared her down. Sara fidgeted in the chair. She had been sound asleep when Swanwick had stormed into the room, followed closely by her father. With a second to get out of bed and throw on one of her father’s spare jackets, she was lead out of the room and into this one. And sitting across from the man from earlier in a baggy t-shirt and a pair sweatpants with “Army” written on one leg was not something that made her feel particularly confident. 

“So,” she began drumming her hands on the table to calm her nerves. “My, uh, father…he-he said you um,” she cleared her throat attempting to level herself out. What was going on? She was never this nervous around people, why was she acting this way now? “He said you requested me, personally. Would you like to tell me why?” 

The man, Zod, just glared at her. A minor tick began in his jaw, as if he was toying with the idea of yelling at her. In actuality he was wondering if it would do him any good to bring his legs up and flip the table on the girl. He was a man of action, not of conversation. He did not stand and give speeches, he fought and killed, but always for the good of Krypton. Zod stopped. There it was again, that empty gaping hole that was where his purpose in life was supposed to be. What was he without Krypton? Was he anything? 

Sara inhaled sharply drawing Zod’s attention back to the present, “Let’s start on another note then. You know that my name is Sara…the guy in the red cape called you Zod,” 

“General Zod,” Zod focused his gaze directly at hers. It stopped her dead in her tracks and for a brief moment he actually enjoyed her company, he had always found something deeply arousing about the “deer-in-the-headlights” look. 

“Right, um, General Zod then…why are you here?” Sara asked. She had no idea what she was doing, she was a scientist on the fast track to her own lab and her PhD she was not by any stretch of the imagination a negotiator or interrogator. What did they want her to find out?

Zod smirked to himself, a momentary lapse in judgment encouraged him to find this amusing and humor her, “I am here looking for the last member of my race, other than myself that is. He has been hiding on this planet for the past thirty-three years acting as one of you. Weak, spineless and useless creatures like yourselves never would have realized that there was a god among you. But he had stolen something from our people, and after the destruction of our planet he escaped.”

“Destruction of your planet? I’m not really following you here.”

“Krypton, our home planet, or at least it was until it imploded thirty-three years ago.” 

“Krypton was that by any chance in orbit around a red giant phase star in the Venamorfic system. Thee, the star itself went up thirty-three years ago triggering the explosion of the planets orbiting it. It was roughly 25 light-years away from here…”

“27,” Zod corrected her. He appeared to be having a staring match with his reflection in the table. In actuality he was reliving the destruction of his home planet. While neither he nor any of his soldiers had been awake to see it, the footage recorded in the ships sensors and logs had been all they had needed to see when they had been awaken not even a full cycle into their sentencing. He could feel the pain of the loss every time he thought back on that moment. It was as if someone where ripping out his heart and lungs while he was still using them. He felt agony beyond any he had ever felt before. The only time he had ever come close to that feeling prior to his battle with Kal had been when he had watched Jor-El’s lifeless body fall to the ground, knowing he had killed him. The only thing that had come close since was when he was kneeling in the ashes of this earth, kneeling in primed soil for his people and realizing that due to the actions of a worthless, wimp of a boy he had lost all hope of reclaiming his home.

“So that is the planet then?” Sara asked. She looked down at her lap, her hands clasped together waiting for something to hit her, another question another thought. This man claimed to have been from her missing planet, from her assigned star system, where were all of her questions, her thirst for knowledge? And then it hit her like a ton of bricks. “You’re trying to tell me that you are an alien?” 

“I am from the planet Krypton.” 

“But why are you here?” Sara asked confusion coloring her voice. Zod opened his mouth to respond but she cut him off. “I get that you’re looking for this guy who has been hiding here but why here in the first place? Why would he come here?” 

“His parents sent him here as a new beginning for our race.” 

“So, what you and this guy just show up, take over and rebuild your population.” 

“I hadn’t planned on taking over.” 

“Well so far you haven’t really struck me as the type of guy who would ‘come in peace’ or anything, I mean with your whole ‘god among you’ comments you really don’t seem to think to highly of us.” 

“I don’t think of you as anything more than dirt on which to rebuild our home.” 

“Dirt, so we build it, you live there. How did you plan on rebuilding the population? It seems to me as if you have reached a problem with that idea considering there appears to only be two males left of your species and unless your anatomy works that much more differently than ours, you’re in quite a sticky situation.” 

“I would have killed you, all of you. And then using the Codex harvested from Kal-El’s corpse I would have revitalized my race in the genesis chamber located on the scout ship that he found. The very same ship that led us to him when he activated it. But because he seems to possess some sort of morality when it comes to how you worthless ants are treated, he destroyed the genesis chamber and any hope we had of reclaiming our race.”

“So you would have whipped out the human race to rebuild your home, just like that?” 

“Do you think I have any reason to lie to you?” 

“So an alien, from a destroyed planet comes here to find one of his own kind, only to have the man he is looking for fight him because you want to kill a whole planet of people, demolish our race? And now, because of your request I, a scientist who is working on her destiny, the very thing in this world she was born to do, is dragged into all of this? So does that mean that when we played this introductory game earlier you should have said your name was Loki, because mine is obviously Jane, and this Kal-El person is Thor? Nice try but I’ve never been much for playing make believe, nor have I had a thing for the goody-goody type.” Sara got to her feet when her rant was over. She walked to the door and pounded her palm against it. “I’m done here, let me out.” 

Zod sat in the chair puzzling over what she had just said. Who the hell were Loki, Jane and Thor? And what did she mean by not going for the goody-goody? And furthermore why did he even care?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for not posting these chapters sooner. I had to go to my college orientation and did not have the time to get these up. But two in one day :)


	5. Chapter 5

Sara sat in her father’s room. She was furious, she was pissed off, and she really really wanted to punch something. That of course was not going to happen, and so she sat on the bed waiting for her father to come get her to take her home. But the person who walked in when the door finally opened was not her father. 

“I’m going to take a shot in the dark and say that you’re this Kal-El guy he was talking about,” Sara commented looking from the man in blue who had walked in back to her feet swinging on the side of the bed. 

“Do you not watch the news at all?” the man asked. His voice was smooth, calm almost like sitting in a boat when the ocean was at peace, the exact opposite effect of the man from the interrogation room. Zod, General Zod, had a commanding gruff tone (not to far of a stretch of the imagination considering he was a General) he conveyed raw emotion when he spoke of his home planet, but was emotionless when it came to anything human related, including killing them. Sara decided that she liked the General’s voice better; he didn’t seem to hide behind the olive branch of friendship.

“No I have better things to do with my time then watch some trash about aliens walking among us,” She looked up at Kal as he walked into the room. He shut the door and grabbed the metal chair from the desk at her corner of the room; he turned it to face her and sat down (though not before throwing his blood red cape over the back of the chair so he didn’t sit on it). She chuckled at his action momentarily before frowning at the ground again. “Then I guess you’re Thor, buy the way?” 

“This isn’t a comic book,” he began leaning towards her so he wouldn’t have to speak very loudly. He didn’t want to scare her; he just wanted to educate her on the subject of what was going on. “You’re not in a game, this is not a joke, and you are in serious danger. That man you just spoke to destroyed half of Metropolis in less than half an hour. He will kill you without a second thought; you would be dead now if it wasn’t for the Kryptonite.”

“The what?” Sara was confused. These people were out of their minds, and the government was actually playing along with them. What was this world coming to? 

“Kryptonite, it is a compound from my home planet. It’s a molecularly charged metal that when melted or condensed into a liquid can block our strength. Apparently it was used to keep prisoners captive and complacent before we transported them into the Phantom Zone. It’s built into the cuffs he wears slowly melting due to his body heat and being absorbed into his skin. It makes him weak.” Kal explained, but he didn’t seem to believe half of what he was saying to her in the first place. It was like some poorly rehearsed script that he was trying out for the first time. 

“And you are telling me this why?” 

“Because, General Swanwick wants you to talk to him again and for me to feel safe about that, I need you to know everything that I know,” He looked sad when he told her this, worried about her safety, nervous. And Sara wanted to hit him repeatedly. If he was this worried why didn’t he talk Swanwick out of having her talk to General Zod?

“And if I refuse?” Sara crossed her arms across her chest, defiantly. Kal shook his head, no. She couldn’t refuse. Sara began to panic, this man was potentially dangerous, hot, but dangerous and she was going to be placed in a room with him. 

Kal jumped to his feet and was sitting next to her, one arm around her shoulder faster than any human should be able to move, “Don’t, don’t cry, just breath. This will all work out in the end. I’m not going to let you get put in harm’s way. As long as we have the kryptonite everything is going to be ok, okay?”

Sara looked up at him, there close proximity allowing her to realize that she had been wrong the day before, his eyes were not brown they were a bluish/green color that somehow look hazel/brown at a distance. And then she realized that the man who might be handing her, her death sentence was sitting right next to her with his arm around her. She jumped to her feet and began pacing. She needed to not be near this guy, because crazy or not he might get her killed. 

“Let me make sure I’m understanding you, because most of today’s conversations have been going way over my head, you are an alien from another planet.” She began finally standing in one place.

“Yes, but before you go off on a tirade on me, no I was not sent here to understand the morality of my shellfish ways, and no I have no interest in dating you, you’re not really my type,” Kal stated giving her a once over. Sara looked down at herself and then at Kal jaw agape at his last statement. When he realized what he had just said he added in a hurry, “Not that you’re not attractive or anything. I mean you’re not but, I’m gonna stop now.” 

“Don’t worry, Kal-El I’m in no way attracted to men who run around in skin tight blue suits with red capes…and by the way, what does the ‘S’ stand for?” 

“It means hope.”

“Really, cuz the last time I check hope was spelled H-O-P-E, no ‘S’ involved.” 

Kal sighed, “Now that you’re calm again, we need to discuss Zod and everything there is to know about him. At least everything I know so that you are up to date on everything that has been going on since you apparently live under a rock.” 

“Just one quick question before we begin, what does Swanwick hope to get out of this?” 

“Swanwick doesn’t want anything from this. If he had his way he would put Zod in the darkest hole imaginable and throw away the key. I on the other hand want to help Zod see the light. To see the good in people and maybe the two of us could work on rebuilding our civilization.” 

“Yeah but, didn’t you destroy the chamber thingy needed to repopulate? I mean unless you plan on mingling with the locals you to seem to be up shits creak without a paddle on that one.”

“There has to be other genesis chambers out there that survived. All we have to do is find another one, along with another command key.”

“Okay, now that I’ve gone off topic again, if Swanwick wants General Zod dead then why am I talking to him?” 

Kal sighed again, he was doing a lot of that lately, “If we, me and you, can prove that Zod is capable of feeling something other than revenge then General Swanwick will allow for him to rejoin the outside world with a guide to help him adjust.”

“So in short: you want me to get in General Zod’s head, make him think humans are good and worth keeping alive, and then turn him over to a ‘half-way’ house type of gig in which case I never see him again?” 

Kal nodded. 

“Sorry my friend, but I’m a scientist not a psychiatrist. I study molecules and reactions not brains and thoughts.” 

“Then why do you care so much about Krypton. Space isn’t your field of study, I know because I read your file. Which your father gave to me.” 

“Your planet went up in flames when your sun, a perfectly functioning red giant that could have burned for another 2,000 years, went supernova. I want to know why.” 

“”There must be hundreds of stars in the night sky, how did you even notice this one?”

“Because it’s located in a constellation in our southern hemisphere, the crow. And six years ago, the crow’s ‘eye’ vanished. The star was 27 light years away. Would have taken 27 years for the light to stop so 27 plus six is thirty-three. And it was assigned to me by my professor. If I can figure out what chemical reaction took place to kill off that star from this distance and actually prove it, well apparently that counts as enough proof for him that I’m worth investing in.”

“And if you talk to Zod, you could do research on space travel as well as what it was like as the environment for Krypton. You could make a lot of money on what you learn.” 

“Or be labeled a crack-pot.”

“Or you could end up helping one person. Saving a life is just as important isn’t it?”

“Sorry to disappoint you Kal, but nothing is more important to fulfilling my destiny. And that is to be a scientist.”

“If word gets out that you hacked into military software, then you can kiss your future good-bye.”

“Are you blackmailing me?”

“Are you going to sit down and listen to what I have to tell you? Trust me this is painless and will only take an hour of your time if you stop asking so many questions. Tomorrow is when you have to worry.” 

Sara stared at Kal, jaw on the floor at his latest argument. She shut her mouth with a snap and stomped over to the edge of the bed like a spoiled child. When she sat, Kal began. And his one-sided conversation lasted three hours, for the record, and she only asked one question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I envisioned that the characters in DC universe get to read Marvel comics while people in Marvel can read DC comics. And it only makes sense to me that Clark Kent, alien from another planet trying to find his place in the world sent here by his father to learn who he was before he reviled himself, would find enough similarity between himself and Thor/Donald Blake that he would find the story interesting. 
> 
> Let me make this clear now, there is NO relationship building with Kal-El and Sara. Kal is just worried about everyone in the world when it comes to getting anywhere near Zod.


	6. Chapter 6

It was a week, not the next day as Kal had predicted, before she was taken back to the main interrogation room. General Zod was already seated and waiting for her, arms bound. Sara stopped with her back to the closed door, not even a full step in the room and just stared at the man.

“I can’t hurt you, if that is what you are so worried about,” General Zod stated. He never broke eye contact as he spoke, never moved more than he had to, every action he took was meaningful and with purpose. Nothing was ever done without a greater reason. 

Sara slowly advanced to the table and sat down across from him. When she was finally seated she realized something was different about him. And then it dawned on her, “They shaved your beard?”

General Zod blinked.

“Well, it’s not like I don’t like it,” Sara commented. Zod tilted his head to the side, a brief look of confusion and interest flashed across his eyes. Sara’s eyes widened when she realized what she had just said. “I-I mean, you look good like that. Not that um you didn’t look good before. It’s just…the clean shaven look suits you better. I mean…”

Zod watched as she stuttered and stumbled over her words. She had done this in the beginning of their last conversation. Did he unnerve her? Did he frighten her? Or was it simply that she felt some sort of emotion towards him? He could use this to his advantage he realized. Kal-El had informed him that she would be talking with him, that she would be his way out of here. He didn’t know what game Kal-El was playing at, but Zod understood that the only way her could fulfill his goal in life was to get out of here. And if he could play upon her emotions, well then this would be easier. Zod smiled at her, not a true smile but a smile none the less.

Sara stopped. He was smiling at her, why was he smiling at her? “Sorry, do I have something on my face?” 

“You’re cute when you’re nervous,” Zod allowed his facial features to soften. He just had to keep playing along. A day or so of this and he would be free to go. Yet things did not go as expected.

Sara frowned, “What’s your first name?”

Zod was taken aback, didn’t women on Earth like that sort of thing. Why was she not swayed by his compliment? Zod shut his eyes and concentrated, he needed to read her mind and understand what it was she was playing at. He would need the upper-hand in this battle as fast as possible. 

Sara interpreted his silence as disinterest in her conversation. “This will go a lot smoother if you just cooperate.”

Zod was ignoring her, he was far too busy sorting through her memories and thoughts to begin to find interest in what she was saying. 

“Look, I don’t like this either but…”

“How did you break your arm?”

“Excuse me?” Sara asked. Zod didn’t need to repeat himself. She had heard his question just fine and an image of her climbing a tree outside of a large brick building. She was half way up the tree when the limb she was climbing snapped under the weight her seven year old body. Zod opened his eyes, now that he knew how she thought; the texture, the taste of her neural pathways, it would be easier to access them in the future. 

“Dru,” 

“What?” 

“My name is Dru-Zod. You asked for my first name. I am Dru from house Zod.”

“House Zod, is El a house as well? You keep calling Kal El so that is his last name and his house, right?” 

“El is one of the eight pure bloodlines along with Zod.”

“Pure bloodlines?” 

“Families that did no soil their blood by mixing with those of lesser houses,” 

“So what does your house’s symbol mean? Kal’s apparently can’t spell because hope does not have an ‘S’. Then again yours really doesn’t look like any letter I’m familiar with.”

“Do you ever stop asking questions?”

“Well you’re not saying anything. The only way I can get you to talk is to prod you for answers.”

“It means conquer. What is your house?” 

Sara sat back in her chair. Her arms crossed over her chest and she laughed. It was odd; Dru-Zod found that he was fighting back the erg to smile while she was laughing Something was wrong; he just didn’t know what it was yet.

“My last name is Killian.”

“And what is your house sigil?” 

“We don’t have one. No one on Earth does. But If we did it would probably mean destiny.”

“Why?” Dru growled at himself, why did he care?

“Because everyone in my family has always known what we were born to do. When my grandfather was five years old he told his father, my great grandfather, that he was going to save people’s lives, specifically that he would be in a helicopter pulling people from the ocean. He joined the coast guard when he turned eighteen and met my grandmother when he saved her life during a storm. My father spent his whole life trailing behind his father growing up around planes. He decided that he would join the air force when he was ten. He is now a Colonel. When I was seven I fell in love with science and set my mind on becoming a scientist. I’m one dissertation paper away from that goal.”

“What would you do if science was taken away from you? What would your father do if he was cut off from the skies, his wings permanently clipped? How would you cope if your destiny, your birthright was taken from you?” malice began to color Dru-Zod’s words as he spoke. He was beginning to shake in anger. “I was born to protect Krypton. Every action I take is for the betterment of my people. What do I do know that I have no people?” 

Dru-Zod was yelling as he posed that last question to her. Sara panicked and pushed her chair back to get away from him. She tripped over it her own feet and fell to the floor with a loud crash. The heavy metal chair crashed to the ground as Dru stood as well. Only, he found that he was not standing to continue to threaten her or scare her; he was genially worried if she was okay. He had found over the past few weeks that humans were extremely fragile creatures. He attempted to climb over the table to reach her faster but cuffs mixed with the kryptonite solution being absorbed into his skin made his movements awkward. 

The humans who had taken up post behind the mirror had apparently taken his movements as a threat to her life. Two of them had run into the room and had charged him before he could take a step forward. They held him firmly against the back wall to the room, applying pressure to his shoulders to keep him there. He watched as another man entered the room and stopped by Sara. He was wearing a blue uniform, as compared to all of the green he was seeing, and looked very similar to Sara; only where she was softer in her features he was hard more accentuated lines, colder exterior. He helped her to her feet and Dru realized that Killian was printed on the badge of his uniform. This was her father.   
Sara slowly stood straight but when she made to walk out of the room she limped, a gash visibly bleeding on her right leg from the chair. Zod shoved back against the soldiers holding him, attempting to reach her to check if she was okay. As a collective the two slammed him back against the wall, knocking his head off the concrete as they did so. And his concentration slipped.

This time, because he had established a connection, he did not pick up sounds and sights from the outside world. Instead it was memories and thoughts from Sara’s past. Quick flashes of faces, bright lights streaking across his mind, images from her past rushing by so quickly he could barely begin to process what he was seeing before it was gone. And then his face filled his mind’s eye. For a moment he had thought it to be one of his own memories about his father before he noticed the surroundings that gradually came into play. He was calm; it must have been from earlier when she came into the room before their conversation began. He found himself focusing on small aspects about his features that he himself had forgotten. The scare that Jor-El had given him during their fight for the Codex was hidden when he was calm, blending into the rest of the lines on his face from age. Several newer scares had formed from his fight with Kal. One cut from his hairline by his ear down the right side of his jaw, another bisected his left eye running parallel to the one from his father, he could still feel the smaller cuts along the back of his neck as well as his head from crashing into buildings. 

The lines were an angry red that added color to his pale features. Being in space was not conductive for maintaining a tan. But as he studied himself through Sara’s eyes a word began to forum before him, ‘handsome’. His mind snapped back to reality when the door to the room was closed and he was released. Dru-Zod dropped to the chair when the soldiers let him off the wall and he gasped for breath. He would need to rethink his planning. Something was very wrong with his mind. He actually found himself wishing Jor was here to help explain away what was going on.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay sooo, just bought the Man of Steel novelization and am going nuts because Greg Cox seems to have neglected to remember that BOTH Kal and Zod had retrofitted phantom drives on their ships. 
> 
> On another note, actually pertaining to this story, cycles= 1 years, circuits = 1 month and subcircuits = 1 week, days are just days on Krypton. Also I did some digging to find out parents information and the book "The Last Days of Krypton" (I think) states that Dru-Zod's fathers name is Cor, thus this was used. Just about all of this is made up. Except for the fact that Jor-El had two younger brothers and that the capital city of Krypton is called Kandor. So lets begin.

Their friendship had been something born of convenience. While they were not slated to be bonded together in the customary house joining’s of the past, they had come to know each other due to the mutual agreement of their fathers. Seyg-El and Cor-Zod had never been on great terms, being the heads of the science and military council respectively, the two always clashed in matters of opinions. But that had changed over the past few circuits, a rumor had spread that one of Seyg-El’s sons was slated to be part of the military guild. While this would usually be cause for celebration, it was an honor for most families on Krypton whether they were of pure bloodline or not, but to the House of El it was a travisty. 

Since the formation of the family, in the very early days of the council and Kryptonian civilization, the House of El had been composed solely of scientists. The foremost minds in their civilization had come from them, and now a member would embark on a new path to the military. Such an idea was heresy. Which was why it was so interesting. At the insinuation that this event was to come to pass, Cor-Zod became interested in Seyg-El’s sons. Each one was a potential leader of their people, and a potential threat to the future of his own son. Cor-Zod knew his son, Dru-Zod, was destined for greatness, bread from the finest of genes his son would be the ultimate warrior, the great defender of his people, the one to solidify the House of Zod in the history books for all of eternity. But since Cor-Zod was unable to gain access to the registry of citizens, due to the efforts of Seyg-El, he would have to find another way to maintain an eye on his enemies. 

Dru-Zod was five cycles older then both of Seyg-El’s sons. But he was the only one Cor-Zod could use to gain access to the boys. Dru-Zod had spent the morning on a transport ship across Kandor to get to The Citadel, ancestral home of the El’s. The ride was long and dull; most of his time was spent watching the other ships participating in air traffic pass by. Kandor was nothing new to Dru-Zod. He had spent most of his 12 cycles following his father or training with his instructors. It had been Cor-Zod’s personal belief that one was never too young to learn how to defend oneself, so starting when he was five cycles old, Dru-Zod began to sharpen and hone his fighting skills. By the age of eight cycles he had mastered most, if not all, the offensive techniques his masters were allowed to show him, he could care less about defensive moves. His father had stopped the “extracurricular” practices when he turned 10 and was taken into the barracks of the military guild to train. 

Now, Dru-Zod, would get to look forward to a summer leave filled with watching two seven cycle boys and a three cycle infant boy. Yes, Dru-Zod, future leader of Krypton’s military as its chief defender, was now the El’s babysitter. Dru-Zod’s attention was turned from his inner monologue when the encasing grey walls made up of the buildings of Kandor vanished, and were replaced by open air. 

The sky lanes leading out to The Citadel were for the most part empty, made that way because large tracks of land surrounding the ancient building had been purchases by Seyg-El’s ancestor; Tri-El. Dru-Zod pressed his face against the deltrimium viewport to see the ground. But what he had expected to see, grey mater known as seltrum which was formed from the decomposed bodies of countless species who had competed for Krypton teracycles before their sun Rao had changed into a red giant that made up the foundation for their very way of life, was in fact endless fields of green. Small dots, from their height, moved across the green fields stopping occasionally then walking again.  
Too soon his view of this new world was blocked off, for the ship had dropped into the landing sphere with made up the entirety of The Citadel’s exterior structure. For the most part it was mushroom shaped, a long circular tube protruded from the ground and ended in a dome which opened to allow for ships to take off or drop in, as his was doing. But the real majesty behind The Citadel’s architecture was located below the ground. Vertical transpo-shafts deposited its riders on the many levels of the structure located below the ground. Five in total, the first two were living tunnels left over from the old days when whole families lived their entire lives in their house only changing location if they married into another, the third were labs, not surprising as the El’s were scientists, the fourth was a testing site for the equipment made the level above, and Dru-Zod had no idea what was located on the fifth.

Today, though, he found himself being escorted to the second floor. With all the space allotted to them, it came as no small surprise to Dru-Zod that the children would spread out. What did surprise him was the fact that Jor-El and Nim-El both shared the same room. Dru-Zod’s escort led him out of the transpo-shaft and down a stark white hallway. The passages here were as barren and lifeless as in his home, but this was a place of knowledge, acceptance, and hope not the militaristic barracks of his father’s estate. As they traveled down the hall, the sound of voices began to fill the air. An argument was taking place behind one of these doors, audible enough so even he could hear without having to concentrate. At times like this he was unsure if he was happy or cursed the bioengineered audio-receptors and transmitters he had been born with in his ears. They were the latest in technology and in several cycles would be mandatory for all children being born to defend Krypton. As the best money could buy most of the processes were operated by thoughts as the chips were implanted as when he was still growing. With a single thought he could pass along what he was hearing to anyone who also had the implant within a twenty mile radius. He could also concentrate and amplify the sound in his general area so that he could hear a whisper five miles away as if the person was standing next to him. Now, he wished he could turn off his hearing entirely. 

Twins, the two elder sons were twins. Not identical, they would argue, but similar enough in both mentality and appearance that Dru-Zod highly doubted either of these two runts were destined to be a threat to his future. Nim-El was taller than his brother, having gone through a growth spurt several circuits ago; he had cut his hair as well recently. He and Jor-El possessed the same pair of blue eyes as well as the same shade of brown hair. But, Jor-El had opted to keep his long, the ends of it barley reaching his shoulder blades, while Nim-El’s was shorter cropped to his ears far more manageable. Both were infuriating though. They either agreed entirely on a subject or disagreed full heartedly. The two were very passionate about everything under, and including, the sun. 

Dru-Zod spent the first circuit he was there avoiding the two completely. Though his father wanted him to keep constant tabs on the two there was only so much he could handle when it came to the composition of the korosin synthetic cubes given to prisoners in Asher city complex. He had scene very little of young Zor-El, though he had found out from Jor-El that his younger brother spent most of his time with his mother or his retainers on the floor above. It had taken three subcircuits for Dru-Zod to find out what the green fields had been outside. Jor-El had laughed when he first asked then explained it was a ghost grass, a bioengineered replica of the organic plant life that had existed here before the burn over. The dots he had scene were the rondor beasts. Several herds of them had been kept as pets on the El estate grounds for cycles. Dru-Zod found that he was secretly hoping Jor-El was the brother who ended up in the military. He could get along with him at least. 

Dru-Zod began to look forward to the three circuits of leave he was allotted by the military guild, in which he visited The Citadel now to spend time with Jor-El and Nim-El. Much to his father’s chagrin, Dru-Zod was becoming friends with the twins. And in the blink of an eye three cycles had past and the two were to receive their placement. The rumors from all those cycles ago proved true, Nim-El had been placed within the ranks of the military guild while Jor-El was being sent to the Science Academy in Fortune city. At the celebratory party Nimda An-Dor, Nim-El’s mother, made Dru-Zod promise to look after her son, he was thick headed and didn’t take orders well. Dru-Zod promised he would do everything he could. Fate had other plans.  
______________________________________________________________________  
Ten cycles had gone by before Dru-Zod and Nim-El, Captain and Sergeant respectively, crossed paths again. An uprising had taken place in Levant City, located next to Asher city. The fighting had allowed for a large number of high security and extremely dangerous prisoners to escape. The two should have never run into one and other. Dru-Zod was leading a team to round up the prisoners, while Nim-El was helping to lead the rebuild effort. Another fight had broken out and Dru-Zod’s men had taken the brunt of it. An explosion, cause by a high caliber plasma rifle bolt had thrown him through the structural wall to one of the buildings he had taken cover behind. When he came too he had a large gash across his forehead and foggy vision. Blue eyes filled his line of sight and Dru-Zod was happy to accept Nim-El’s help. 

They had made it most of the way back to the basecamp when a second round of fire from insurgents surrounded them. Both men dove for cover but it quickly became clear that they were not going to be able to hold out until back up arrived. Nim-El realized this long before Dru-Zod did, because Captain Dru-Zod did not give up on a fight. A good death was its own reward. And every death in battle was for the greater good. It was only due to the quick actions of Nim-El that either of them made it out of that building alive, but at a cost that Dru-Zod would never allow himself to live down. 

He was informed, when he woke up in the medical facilities in Kandor city, that he would look different than before, younger. The nurse on staff claimed that their serger-bot needed to have an image on memory to work with in order to preform facial reconstruction. Due to the military’s inept ability at keeping up to date on things like facial construct a younger read out was used. A read out which had happened to be from his father as well. It was several subcircuits before Captain, no major he had gotten a promotion, Zod was able to look in a mirror. 

His face was far more angular know then it had been. His father’s hidden cheek bones had been grafted into his face as well as a sharpened jaw line. His nose, which had been broken several times in combat training, had been realigned. In all he no longer looked like the thirty cycles old war scared military officer he was, he looked like a nineteen cycle cadet. 

The news hadn’t reached him until after he left the facility. The bomb which had ripped apart Major Zod’s face had taken Nim-El’s life. The grieving ceremony had taken place while he was still unconscious and Dru-Zod found he was unsure if he would be welcome in The Citadel. Cor-Zod spent the first subcircuit reaffirming that his son was alive every day. And the constant pestering was getting on Dru-Zod’s nerves. It was broken by the arrival of Jor-El. Now a member of the high science guild, Jor-El no longer resembled his twin brother like he used to. His eyes were a royal blue, unguarded and alight with curiosity and wonder. His hair was still long, but it possessed none of the greying strands that Staff Sergeant El had possessed due to his job. 

Jor-El became his salvation. For a while Jor-El was the reason he kept moving. Staff Sergeant Nim-El was gone, but Major Dru-Zod had to keep on living. Every day he would go to The Citadel and spend most of his free time following Jor-El around level three as he showed off his latest invention. After two cycles Dru-Zod was introduced to H’Raka, Jor-El’s War-Kite. With Jor-El’s help he learned to fly without the heavy seltrum walls of the gunships protecting him. And for the next thirteen cycles Dru-Zod was at peace.  
“I will never understand you, Jor,” Dru-Zod commented as he walked with his friend down the long hall of The Citadel the two had just gotten back from flying when Jor-El had decided to cut their time short because he had a date with Lara Lor-Van. 

Jor-EL smiled at his friend, “One day Dru, you will find a girl who will make everything you have ever strived to accomplish seem futile. Because in the end all of the talk about being made to perform a certain job will all become static noise in the background compared to her. You will live for her and your future with her.” 

Dru-Zod laughed at Jor-El, shaking his head as a way of dismissing his friend’s statements. “You, have been spending far too much time with that pre-genesis information. What do you find in there that is so interesting that it has captivated your mind so?” 

“Choice. A freedom to choose one’s own future,” Jor-El had grasped onto Dru-Zod’s shoulders. Dru-Zod began to smile at his longtime friend, believing he was joking. Seeing this Jor-El continued. “What if a child dreamed of becoming something other than what society had intended for him or her, what if a child aspired to something greater?” 

Dru-Zod’s face fell when he realized that Jor-El was serious, “Jor, what you speak of is heresy. Bond with Lor-Van’s daughter, mate with her in your primal way if you wish. But do not allow your foolish hope of choice to override what you know to be the logical decision.” 

Jor-El grew serious, the two stopped at a viewport built into the wall and looked out to the fields and Rao as he spoke, “One day, Dru, you will understand what it is I am feeling. One day, you will know and appreciate what I am going to tell you. What you think is your life’s goal is not in fact your destiny. You are meant for far more than just combat, you will become greater then you can even imagine. But you will lose so much to get there that it will seem pointless until the very thing you had fought so hard for is held in your hands.” 

“So you’re a prophet now, Jor?” Dru-Zod asked with a snort moving to turn from his friend. 

“Nim-El saw it in you, that is why he gave his life for yours. You will rebuild Krypton with your actions,” Dru-Zod laughed openly at Jor-El’s words. “If you do not believe me, look for yourself.” 

Dru-Zod looked out the viewport at Rao, following his friend’s gaze. He watched as the red sun shrunk in size momentarily before expanding, sending out a burst of heat and bright blinding light. Dru-Zod brought up his arm to shield his face from the blast, shutting his eyes he waited for the light to burn down. 

“Open your eyes, Zod,” A voice echoed around him. Dru-Zod dropped his arm to find himself surrounded by white. His feet were firmly planted on solid ground, indistinguishable from the walls or ceiling or anything around him for that matter. What did stand out was Jor-El. The forty-nine cycle old Jor-El who he had killed twice. 

“You’re dead,” Dru-Zod stated glaring at the ghost standing in front of him. “I have killed you, twice now. What do I have to do to finally be rid of you?”

Jor-El tilted his head to the side in confusion, a trait that Dru-Zod had come to hate over the many cycles. His friend was wearing the ceremonial science robes from the council, the same ones he was wearing before he died. Dru-Zod knew from memory that the house of El wore skinsuits that that were deep blue in color with their sigil embroidered across their chest in a darker shade of blue (not the color clashing deep blue skinsuit with a red and gold sigil worn by his son Kal-El). The robes of the science guild did not allow for the traditional cape that was worn over the skinsuits, instead thick, ornate, seltrum shoulder guards that locked in the front of the robes with the house sigil of the member. The robes themselves were made of glimersilk, his was a dark blue color that transitioned from blue to black as he walked.

It was then that Dru-Zod took into account what he was wearing. Over his own skinsuit, black with his houses sigil emblazoned into it, was the military guilds ceremonial garb. Unlike the science guilds free flowing material, the military guild was far more practical. Detailed patterns were still visible on the seltrum metal-works that made up parts of his armor but they were light weight compared to the cumbersome shoulder guards of the other guilds. Gun-metal grey vambraces covered his arms from wrist to elbow trapping the free-flowing black glimmer silk sleeves under them. Two stylized clasps held the chest plate, similar to those of conquers from long past, to his cape. Branded into the plate was his house sigil, while the clasps themselves were shaped like Clasamorphic Vipers digging their fangs into his shoulders, this held the black glimersilk cape. He wore shin guards on his lower legs and a ceremonial sword was strapped to his waist. 

“What is this?” Dru-Zod asked, his temper was barely kept in check. He had very little patients anymore, a sign of his old age, and a bad quality to find in a military leader of his ranking. 

“This is your dream,” Jor-El stated, as if it should have been blatantly obvious to the man before him. 

“Why are you here?” 

“You called for me, earlier today you wanted my help,” Jor-El explained as if he were describing the weather to Dru-Zod. “When you terminated my program I needed to find a new home to preserve myself in, your implants in your brain run off a simplified version of the tech used for the AI system aboard the ship. Making the jump was simple once I had you distracted.” 

“So you’re doing this. You’re the reason she is plaguing my mind,” Dru-Zod stormed over towards the AI that had hijacked his mind, but the program seemed to maintain a constant distance without having to move himself. 

“She? Sara, no you did that yourself. Humans have a far different brain structure to that of Kryptonians. By delving so deeply into her mind to gain the connection you wanted you created a bond.” 

“And how do I break that bond?” 

“You can’t.” 

“Why not?” Dru-Zod was furious, Jor-El had mastered the techniques mandatory for driving him to insanity over the many cycles they had known one and other. Withholding information was one of many that infuriated him to no end. 

“Bonds similar to the one you created can only be dissolved by both parties in a mutual agreement, you would have to convince Sara that she does not want to be your bond mate. It will take time for you to gradually work he through our cultural information, and in that time who knows what will happen between the two of you. Maybe she is the one who will quiet your mind.”

“We both know such a person does not and did not exist, Jor-El. The Codex would have informed me if there was.” Both men know that Dru-Zod is referring to the Codex’s subdivision that delt with pair-bondings.

When a citizen of Krypton reached the age of majority, nineteen cycles, they were permitted access to the Codex’s secondary files. It was a list of all of the citizens and the bonds that the Codex would use. It was a remnant from when DNA samples would have to be submitted to the Codex’s files directly to produce an offspring, engineered the way society would need. Now it acted as a way of forewarning, if a citizen bonded with one who was not listed the child would not resemble both parents, not that it really mattered in the long run.

One fourth of the population though, had no listed pair-bonding. This was due to a death or casualty that would take place before they either met their bonding partner or decided to have children. In some extremely rare cases it was due to a glitch in the Codex’s readout that changed events of one’s destiny without its control. This was not the Codex predicting the future though; each person on Krypton was born to fulfill a specific role determined by the Codex. As such the Codex knew what each individual would do in any situation, it knew the future because it had a stacked deck so to speak. It would know before the individual was born what the course of their life would be. 

It had come as little surprise to Jor-El that he was pair-bonded with Lara Lor-Van, what had surprised him was when she had reached the age of majority as well how well they actually got along. Pair-bonds did not exist for the reasoning of love or even mutual agreement; the bonds were based on strong genetic cohesion which would make for a stronger, smarter more successful Krypton. These chosen pair-bonds could easily ignore the chosen pair-bond in favor of another; it made no difference to the Codex anymore.  
Dru-Zod did not have a name by his own. It had taken cycles for him to realize why it was he had no name listed by his own even though he was alive and capable. It was not due to his inability to place his and his houses future above that of the greater good of Krypton, as Jor-El had jokingly stated many a time, it was because he was supposed to have been dead. The Codex was rarely, if ever, wrong. But it could not account for glitches in the system, a set of twins when there was supposed to only be one child for instance, could throw off the readout, or a member of a family known for science was slotted to be in the military instead. Accidents happened in the genesis chamber, far more rarely then in the past, but they did still take place. Nim-El was one such accident. 

Jor-El’s twin was not supposed to be in the military guild, in fact he was not meant to be at all. Dru-Zod was supposed to have died in the Levant city uprising, killed by the same heliox grenade that had killed Nim-El and tore his face to shreds. The house of Zod, with its only heir dead, was supposed to have ended in that battle. It was only due to the accidental replication within the third circuit of Jor-El’s incubation that Dru-Zod was alive. For this reason, he had no name to pair-bond with. 

“You do not need to follow everything the Codex said,” Jor-El began to explain, pacing again. “Aethyr-Ka and you would have made a good pair. She was level headed, a perfect fit.” 

“She was of a lesser bloodline and devoted to the study of microbes living with cells of long dead species. She was a fascination, not a permanent solution.” 

“Than what of Faora Hu-Ul, she would have dedicated her life to you; she did anything and everything you asked of her. She was a first tier-pure bloodline.” 

“She was my sub commander.”

“Do you have an excuse for everything?”

“No, Jor-El, I do not. I simply do not understand what difference it would have made if I had chosen to pair-bond with either of them considering my heir would have died on Krypton because you cared only in maintaining the survival of your house. You cared only enough about the destruction of our planet, our people, to send your son to this world.”  
“Then rebuild your line,” Jor-El was losing patients with his old friend; there was only so much he could take before he cracked. “Bond with Sara; a full bond not just the mutual pair-bond. Mate with her, she is compatible with us in some way the fact that she can even have a temporary pair-bond formed shows evidence of that.”

“And make a half-breed whelp my heir. Dilute the bloodline my ancestors fought so hard to keep strong and clean. Forget Krypton and the atrocities you and your son committed towards her. No, Jor-El, I will not relinquish the promise I made that day to Lara. I will reclaim what you two took from us, form all of Krypton, or I will take every last human from your son until he is the last member of a dead race just as I am. We are done.”

And Dru-Zod opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of his cell. The ghost of Jor-El’s voice ringing still in his ears, begging him to see reason, and then finally damming him. Jor-El’s final words to Dru-Zod were that Nim-El had made a mistake in saving his life on that battle field. 

Their friendship had been something born of convenience, and it had ended in mutual hate.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about this taking so long, but movie is out, and I am on vacation so writing is main priority.

“Rough day?” Captain Carrie Farris asked when Sara stormed into the room and slammed the door shut. After a month had gone by, Colonel Killian had been unable to stay on base, as he was needed elsewhere. His room had been given back to its original occupant. Sara was transferred to another room and since there was a shortage of rooms she would be bunking with another officer. The only female begin Captain Farris.   
Sara dropped onto the bed that had been wedged into the corner of the room. She buried her face in her hands and let out a sound that was a mixture of a scream and a growl. When Carrie laughed, she sat up. 

“That man is the most infuriating person on this earth,” Sara shouted as she grabbed her pillow and threw it across the room. Carrie, who was sitting at her desk on the other side of the room, ducked to avoid getting hit in the face and grabbed the offending object before it could damage anything of hers. Carrie smiled and watched the younger girl get to her feet to pace around the room. “I mean he spends all of the time we are trapped in there, insulting my intelligence while at the same time seemingly trying to educate me on how Krypton used to work.” 

“So you are getting somewhere then? General Swanwick wants and update on the situation,” Carrie stated watching the girl she had come to think of as a friend continue to pace at an exceedingly fast pace. “You know if he stops giving you information, and he refuses to give up his revenge plan that he will be killed right? As long as you keep learning something from these visits he lives. And we both know how much you really want him to live.” 

“What are you going on about now?” Sara asked she slumped onto the bed again this time staying upright but her attention now on her roommate. 

“I was there for the first few visits you know, I saw the way you reacted to him. You like him. It’s not that hard to see, I mean I don’t see the appeal to him but…well Superman…”

“I am not in love with Dru.”

“Dru?”

“Dru-Zod, the man I get to spend four hours in a room with everyday attempting to get him to tell me everything General Swanwick could possibly want to know about Krypton. The man who tried to destroy the earth to rebuild his civilization. The man who lost his home all those years ago because the damned council members would not see reason. The same man who…”

“Who…”

“Haunts my dreams because I can relate to him so well. The reason I can’t sleep at night because of the question he asked me on our second meeting. What would I do if everything I knew about my future was taken from me? It scares me to think about it, because if I slip up here, Swanwick will do everything in his power to keep me from that dream. And if he doesn’t, Kal-El will.”

“But he wouldn’t…”

“He would, Carrie. He told me so himself when this all started. If I can’t rehabilitate Dru somehow then its game over. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go enter in all the data Dru gave me today.” With that Sara walked back out of the room, data disk in hand. She wandered around the complex until she was sure that no one was following her, or paying any attention to where she was going. 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The main computer lab was key code protected, not surprising considering the access it allowed to a great deal of extremely high security files. It had taken a month of crappy information collection for Sara to gain the passcode from Mason. It was interesting how well Dru-Zod could conduct two conversations at once. You see after their second meeting Dru had passed along the information to Sara that some Kryptonians could communicate telepathically thanks to implants that had been engineered into their brains when they were growing in genesis chambers. Since then he had been pumping her full of information about Krypton while the two seemed to be carrying on pointless conversations. 

What Sara didn’t know though, was that each time Dru-Zod sent another message to her it drew the bond even closer to completion. Each new thought that he explained to her was slowly dragging his mind closer to her own. And every time she responded, Jor-El took over a little more control. It was like a virus, a fever of sweet heat running through the synapsis of his mind each time his thoughts connected to hers. And he was finding it was harder and harder to pull away. 

Sara buzzed in the key code and checked the halls around her once more before opening the door and stepping into the dark room. She didn’t need to power on the lights, as she thankfully remembered to download the flashlight app on her phone, and she navigated her way to the far corner so she had less of a chance of being scene. She was looking for the last piece she needed before she called in her team. It had taken a month of coercion, but she finally had convinced him to send her an image of the command key needed to start a genesis chamber. 

Sara knew Swanwick had one, he had to have one. When the scout ship had been brought down over Metropolis by Kal-El the command key was still inside. But she had broken into the records room, she had found the pieces of the scout ship and even the command console, but the command key was not inside. He had to have it somewhere; it couldn’t just disappear could it? Once the computer had hummed to life, Sara inserted Mason’s phantom drive. It was a program that would hunt for coded keys based on brief descriptions or selected images. But the beauty behind it all was, this one did not leave a trail to follow. 

He had outfitted it to search for the Kal-El’s “s” for hope design. He had also entered in a sub-search for the symbol Dru-Zod wore. After several minutes of watching files open and close faster than she could actually view them the drive got a match. And the schematics for the command key, along with the image of the actual key itself came up. She was in luck, this one she wouldn’t have to call in a favor. The key was being kept in this facility. Sara smiled and shut the computer down after pulling out the disk. She snapped it in half and disposed of it in the nearest trash can after she left the room. 

When she got back to her sleeping quarters she found Carrie already asleep in her bed. As quietly as possible, Sara climbed into her own bed and smiled up at the ceiling; biting back a laugh she started planning how she would retrieve the key from Swanwick’s office.


	9. Chapter 9

He is very meticulous about how he goes about his days. Every last action happens just as he needs them and he does nothing without reason. His morning begins with wakeup call at 0600, reminiscent of his days at basic training. He then takes a shower from 0615 to 0625. After he brushes his teeth, he gets dressed in a new pressed uniform and makes his way to his office. For the next three hours he sorts through paper work at his desk and when he has restacked his piles, he gets up and goes to the mess hall to get his breakfast. 

His meal takes half-an-hour to eat, due to his conversations with his fellow generals and those directly beneath him. He then goes back to his office and spends another four and a half hours doing what General’s do. He takes a brief stroll around the perimeter of the base, to make sure everyone in in their correct placement. Every Thursday he drops by the holding facilities to make sure that Zod is still alive and bound, and that the new man Private Siegel is doing his job. Every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, he goes to the observance room to watch Zod talk about meaningless drivel with Sara. The rest of the night he spends in his office until lights out at nine. 

This is the reason it takes Sara a week to work out the particulars of how she was supposed to go about breaking into his office to search and find the key. Something short like the five minute bathroom breaks was not going to cut it. On the other hand the room was locked between the hours of nine at night and six in the morning. Then again it’s not like she was going to be able to walk up to the door and walk in, Sergeant Shuster was sitting at a desk right next to the door as a glorified secretary. 

It was another four days for her to hack into the software and pull up schematics for the base. She had most of the particulars worked out. There was an air-vent that led to his office. Granted she was not master spy or anything, but she would have to try. Dru knew something was wrong of course. The man was in her mind four days out of the week, so of course it didn’t take him long to figure out. She needed to keep him away from all of it. 

She faked being sick on Friday; she needed both the time permitted by her absence as well as the mental fortitude to go through with her plan. Captain Farris left the room early that day, and Sara began to go over her plans one last time. With a sigh she moved the chair in her room underneath the air vent and climbed up to it. She had loosened the screws several days ago to make this part simpler. Her lack of upper-body strength on the other hand was a detriment in this situation. She hooked her fingers on the edge and struggled for five minutes (which felt like an eternity) to pull herself up. When her torso was inside the vent she left out a sigh of relief followed by a grunt of pain as her hip jammed into the lip of the vent. 

It took another seven minutes for her to work the rest of her body into the air vent, ripping her jeans several times along the way, and then she began her forward progress. Something she had not taken into consideration until this moment occurred to her, this was nowhere near as simple as it appeared to be on television, and she was beginning to feel claustrophobic. She also swore she was making a great deal of noise as she tried to army crawl (oh the puns she would think of for this later) her way through the air duct. 

After spending twenty minutes trying to force her way through the tight space, tearing up her arms and legs in the process, she was ready to call it quits. By this point she was pretty sure that everyone in the complex had heard her cursing up a storm as she tore the jeans she was wearing again. When she was about to call it quits and kick open the next vent hatch she passed, an image flashed through her mind of Dru sitting cuffed in the interrogation room. That was enough to motivate her to push forward. She crawled through the passages, slowly coming toward to the hatch that let out in General Swanwick’s office. AS she reached it she realized a problem. The screws to open the hatch were on the outside of the vent. 

Crawling past the vent she attempted to kick it open in hopes of it breaking off. And it appeared that luck was on her side, for after the second kick the screws (which must have been about to rust away) broken and the grate fell with a horrendous crash to the ground. Sara cringed and waited for Sergeant Shuster to race in and find out what all the racket was for, but he never came. 

Thanking whatever god was attempting to help her at this point, Sara swung first her left leg and then her right leg out of the vent and began to lower herself out. When she realized she had another, even bigger problem. In her room; she had used a chair to climb into the vent, now the lower-half of her body was hanging out of the vent held up by her arms, and she was losing her grip fast. 

“Oh, Shit,” Sara gasped out just as her right elbow slipped past the edge of the vent. A large gash was cut into her left arm as she fell with a crash to the ground, narrowly missing the desk as she did so. Sara coughed as she gasped for the air that had been rapidly compressed from her lungs when she fell. Groaning she flipped onto her stomach and dragged herself around to the back of his desk. Using the chair, she hulled herself up into it so she could reach his desk top. With a growl of frustration she began to rip apart his desk draws in search of the command key. The first one she pulled open revealed a black leather wallet. Grabbing it out she flicked it open and laughed at the image of a younger Swanwick with an afro on his driver’s license. She thumbed through the contents and pulled out a hundred dollar bill along with a Quicksilver credit card. Pocketing it she closed the wallet and threw it back in the drawer. 

It took half an hour for her to locate it in the filing cabinet, along with a set of keys belonging to a very nice truck that she threw into her pocket as well (because hey you never know), who keeps something like that in a filing cabinet? But something was off. Her time should have run up a long time ago. Either General Swanwick should have returned or at the very least Sergeant Shuster should have come in to figure out what all of the noise was. Not one to look a gifted horse in the mouth she looked back up to the air vent and pondered how best to get up there. 

Growling she grabbed the chair and dragged it under the vent. She climbed up and grabbed hold of the edge and began to pull herself back into the vent. When something occurred to her. Why hadn’t Shuster come in to find out who was in Swanwick’s office? There was no logical reason. 

Pocketing the command key, Sara slowly opened the office door and pocked her head out. Shuster was not at his post. And the hall appeared to be empty. Carefully she edged her way out into the hall, and with all of the stealth and finesse she possessed (none at all) she made her way down the hall. 

She checked every room as she went, and was terrified by the fact that the whole command wing of the complex was empty. There was not a soul in sight. Sara ignored this fact and made her way to the prisons, mainly to Zod’s. She was going to tell him of the project she had been working on, and the fact that his freedom was so close at hand. 

But as she neared the cell, she realized something else was amiss. Siegel was not present; no guard was at his post either. What was going on? Sara picked up more speed as she ran down the hall to Zod’s cell. 

She cried out in frustration when she reached it, “No!” 

Dru-Zod’s cell was empty. And Sara was now officially beginning to panic.


End file.
